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Japan to ship 1 million COVID-19 vaccines to Vietnam
Nation pledges $1 billion, 30 million doses to COVAX facility for needy countries
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apan will send a million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Vietnam, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said on Tuesday, as the southeast Asian nation steps up vaccine procurement to fight a more stubborn wave of infections.
With a population of about 98 million, Vietnam's tally of infections stands at 10,241, and only 58 deaths, since the pandemic began.
The shipment of AstraZeneca PLC vaccines produced in Japan is due to arrive in Vietnam on Wednesday, Motegi told reporters.
Japan is considering additional vaccine donations to Vietnam and Taiwan, and plans similar shipments to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand from early July, Motegi added.
Taiwan received 1.24 million AstraZeneca doses from Japan this month to counter a domestic resurgence of cases. Its government thanked Japan on Tuesday for considering additional aid.
"We will continue to maintain close communication with the Japanese side and look forward to the smooth arrival of the vaccines in Taiwan as soon as possible," the island's foreign ministry said in a statement.
Japan has pledged US$1 billion and 30 million doses to the COVAX facility that provides vaccines to needy countries. But the shipments to Vietnam, Taiwan and other Asian neighbors are being made outside of COVAX to speed up delivery, Motegi said.
"If we go through an international organization, the procedures in getting approval may take time," he said.
Japan has contracted to buy 120 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine, which it approved last month. But there are no immediate plans to use it at home, as concerns linger over international reports of blood clots.
Taiwan has millions of doses on order worldwide but supply shortages have led to delays in receiving them, with just about 4 percent of a population of 23.5 million having received at least one shot as it battles the spike.
With just 132 new cases reported on Tuesday, the island is gradually bringing the domestic outbreak under control.
"The overall trend seems to be heading in a better direction, but we still can't relax," Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said in Taipei, the capital.
In the meantime, Japan's requirement of domestic clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines cost it precious time in inoculating its population, vaccine program chief Taro Kono said on Tuesday.
About 4.8 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated, a Reuters tracker shows, the lowest rate among large wealthy economies at a time when tens of thousands of visitors are poised to arrive for the Tokyo Olympics starting on July 23.
"If I could go back all the way to the beginning, I would have probably scrapped the clinical trial that we did," Kono told reporters.
"It's probably necessary for ordinary times, but in the case of emergency, or state of emergency, like COVID-19, I think we should have started the vaccination as early as possible."
Japan's mid-February start of vaccinations lagged most major economies and was dependent on initially scarce doses of Pfizer Inc's vaccine imported from overseas.
Kono, the administrative reform minister tapped to head the program in January, said opposition parties pushed for domestic trials and media would have pilloried the government if accidents had happened without them.
But some public health experts have said the domestic trials, involving 200 subjects or fewer, were scientifically meaningless.
In recent weeks, the vaccine campaign has picked up steam and is set to accelerate now that thousands of companies have signed up to use government supplies to administer shots to employees and families.
Kono said he hoped daily vaccinations would hit one million by the end of June, up from about 700,000 now.
